Eighteen Democratic attorneys general have filed a lawsuit against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for blocking the enforcement of an Obama-era rule against for-profit colleges, according to The Hill.

The so-called “gainful employment” rule requires for-profit colleges to prove that their graduates’ incomes compared to their debts will allow them to pay back their student loans. No such standard applies to colleges that are not for-profit institutions.

DeVos froze implementation of the rule until it could be revised, and has been revising and delaying benchmarks colleges faced to comply with the Obama-era rule, which was part of the previous administration’s effort to crack down on for-profit colleges.

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The Obama rule “missed an opportunity to get it right,” DeVos said in June when she blocked it, explaining that the rule is “overly burdensome and confusing” for colleges and universities, according to U.S. News.

“It’s time to take a step back and make sure these rules achieve their purpose: helping harmed students,” DeVos said. “It’s time for a regulatory reset.”

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DeVos has said that the gainful employment rule, if fully implemented, “would unfairly and arbitrarily limit students’ ability to pursue certain types of higher education and career training programs,” Politico reported.

However, attorneys general from 17 states and the District of Columbia have filed suit to ensure that even though the Obama administration is gone, its rules should live on.

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The lawsuit claims DeVos is violating the law by blocking and then rewriting the rule.

Other states represented in the suit are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

“Students seek higher education degrees to get better, higher paying jobs,” Frosh said in a statement, according to The Washington Post. “When predatory institutions fail to deliver the education and training they promise, students are saddled with burdensome debt, and their employment prospects are not improved.”

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The Education Department called the suit “the latest in a string of frivolous lawsuits filed by Democratic attorneys general who are only seeking to score quick political points.”

“While this administration, and Secretary DeVos in particular, continue work to replace this broken rule with one that actually protects students, these legal stunts do nothing more than divert time and resources away from that effort,” department spokeswoman Liz Hill said in a statement.